Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) is commonly used within the field of electronic chip manufacturing for the purposes of testing electronic components. ATE systems both reduce the amount of time spent on testing devices to ensure that the device functions as designed and serve as a diagnostic tool to determine the presence of faulty components within a given device before it reaches the consumer.
ATE systems can perform a number of test functions on a device under test (DUT) through the use of test signals transmitted to and from the DUT. Conventional ATE systems are very complex electronic systems and generally include printed circuit boards (PCB), coax cables and waveguides to extend the signal path of test signals transmitted from the DUT to a tester diagnostic system during a test session. However, increases to the length of the signal path, particularly at millimeter frequencies, can result in the loss of signal strength which can degrade the integrity of test signals transmitted from the DUT at high frequencies.
Conventional ATE systems use PCBs that include several centimeters of microstrip transmission lines disposed on the surface of a PCB to convey test signals from a DUT to a tester diagnostic system. Furthermore, when waveguides are used in conventional ATE systems requiring high frequency signaling, and conventional waveguide flanges are used to mate the waveguide and tester electronics to the DUT, the general dimensions of these flanges, which are often circular in shape, can be a limiting factor to the total signal path of test signals. Accordingly, the elongation of the test signal path caused by use of longer microstrip transmission lines as well as other components, such as coax cables and conventional waveguide flanges (including any adaptors required by these components) by modern ATE systems can result in unnecessary signal loss at high frequencies.
Furthermore, the large size of the waveguide flanges means that they cannot be closely mounted together with adjacent waveguides when multiple signal paths need to converge on an integrated circuit with tightly aligned signal paths.